


death is peaceful (life is harder)

by jcp_sob_rjl_lmep



Series: i know what you are (say it. say it out loud) [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Good Parent Alfred Pennyworth, Multi, Pack Family, Prequel, this is the story of alfred's Turn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29592399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jcp_sob_rjl_lmep/pseuds/jcp_sob_rjl_lmep
Summary: To his credit, however, Alfred does not “freak out” as Martha likes to say Thomas did. He stands there, in the hallway outside the kitchen, holding the tray of food, and it’s like something settles in his chest, clicks together in his soul; something says,oh.He does love them, and they love him, and he’s found a home here, in this place that was never meant to be permanent.So he takes the food in, and Martha smiles at him (tongue-in-cheek, eyes sparkling, as always) and he places the tray on the table and kisses Thomas square on the mouth, to Martha’s delighted shriek of laughter.
Relationships: Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth/Martha Wayne/Thomas Wayne
Series: i know what you are (say it. say it out loud) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018582
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	death is peaceful (life is harder)

That horrible, awful night, Alfred had known even before the police called that Thomas and Martha were dead. He had felt his pack bonds tear, had felt his lovers leave this Earth, had felt the responsibility of Pack Alpha settle onto his shoulders. When he’d finally mustered the strength to stand, the phone had rung, and he hadn’t even listened to the woman on the other side. He knew what she was saying.

_Your mates are gone._

_Your pup is parentless._

_You are, once again, alone._

He, the least suited to parenthood of the three of them, is left with a pup. Left with their manor and their fortune and the wellbeing of their child, tasked with ensuring he makes it to adulthood and beyond.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. This isn’t where the story starts. It starts years ago when Alfred Thaddeus Crane Pennyworth answered a call from his father and boarded a boat to the Americas, unknowing of the pains and joys that would make up the rest of his life.

* * *

His father leaves practically as soon as he can; as soon as Alfred has signed the employment contract, it feels as if his father is packed and gone, even before Alfred has been in the country a month.

Not that he needs his father with him to settle into his role; being a butler is much easier than other jobs he’s held throughout his life. But it would have been nice to spend time with his father, after living so much life without him.

Still, he is in equal company; the Master of the house has only recently inherited the role after the death of his own father, and the Mistress is new to this as well, as they haven’t even been married all that long. Alfred attempts to hold up the formality, but somewhere along the lines, Thomas and Martha wiggle their way past his walls.

Martha loves to arrange flowers, so she takes the task for personal rooms and leaves the rest to the servants; specifically, she always chooses the flowers for their bedroom, their favorite living room, for Thomas’s office, and for Alfred’s office.

Thomas, however, likes to give gifts, and there is no way of stopping him. (Years later, his son has the same habit, and it makes Alfred’s heart sing and ache in equal measure to see the man he loves live on in their son.) The first time he comes home with flowers and perfume for Martha in one arm and a set of cufflinks for Alfred in the other, Alfred attempts to refuse kindly.

Thomas comes home the next day with ten new sets, a grin on his face, and flowers besides. Alfred doesn’t take long to give in.

Still, Alfred doesn’t realize (“lovably obtuse,” Martha claims, smiling and asking Bruce, “What am I to do with your fathers, hmm?”) until the night when he’s gathering the dinner from the chef, and she clicks her tongue and pats him on the cheek and says, “Young love,” with a happy sigh.

To his credit, however, Alfred does not “freak out” as Martha likes to say Thomas did. He stands there, in the hallway outside the kitchen, holding the tray of food, and it’s like something settles in his chest, clicks together in his soul; something says, _oh_.

He does love them, and they love him, and he’s found a home here, in this place that was never meant to be permanent.

So he takes the food in, and Martha smiles at him (tongue-in-cheek, eyes sparkling, as always) and he places the tray on the table and kisses Thomas square on the mouth, to Martha’s delighted shriek of laughter.

* * *

Nothing much changes after that; Alfred slips out of their bedroom in the morning, maneuvering away from grasping hands, and heads to his own to dress and ready himself for the day. He spends most of his days with Martha, the dutiful servant at her elbow, but sometimes he leaves with Thomas, or Thomas manages to get a day off, and then he and Thomas are the shadows standing just behind Martha’s sun. It’s no easy task; he loves her, but Martha Kane Wayne is a spitfire, never one to take anything sitting down. He loses count of the number of times he reaches out and presses her arm just before she swears.

Well, there are two large changes: pack, and pup.

Thomas doesn’t take long to bring up the Change to Alfred; he’ll be Pack either way, Thomas assures him, whether or not he wants to be a wolf. But Thomas can change, and Martha can as well, though she still holds the hyena form that the Kane Pack is known for. Alfred says he’ll think about it, and then, it quite honestly slips his mind.

Likely because the next morning, he and Thomas wake up, sun still below the horizon, to Martha leaping onto the bed and waving a plastic stick in the air.

They’re to be parents.

Suddenly, every spare moment is taken by planning for the baby - Thomas, in particular, goes to the store and comes home with no less than fifteen baby name books, while Alfred and Martha take their fun in making up awful names just to watch him twitch at the thought.

Thomas doesn’t catch on until the day that Alfred brings home a baby blanket, embroidered with _Tholfred Alfmus Wayne_ in the corner. Martha laughs until she cries, and Thomas wrestles Alfred to the ground, helped along by the fact that Alfred is laughing too hard to put up a fight.

“We’re naming him Bruce,” He says firmly, straddling Alfred, blue eyes joyful and the grin still wide on his face.

Alfred sighs and says, “Oh Tholfred, we hardly knew thee,” in a properly sad tone. Thomas reaches over to grab a couch cushion and begins to bludgeon Alfred with it until they’re both so breathless with laughter that he collapses to the floor beside Alfred and they very firmly look away from each other in the fears that they’ll start up again.

“What if it’s a girl?” Alfred says, and Thomas growls, grabbing the pillow once more.

* * *

(Many years later, their grandchildren will be hunting through the attic for something, and Tim will bring down an old baby blanket, worn with age but still in fairly good shape. Everyone will be startled and worried when upon seeing it, Alfred begins to laugh so hard that he is forced to sit down in an armchair, barely able to choke out an explanation.)

(Jason will address notes to his father as “Tholfred” for _months_.)

* * *

And in all of the time it takes for them to prepare, it seems as though the pregnancy speeds by, and suddenly Martha is leaning over the bed, shaking Thomas and Alfred awake where they lay curled together. “My water broke.”

Then it’s a whirlwind of two days, from Alfred and Thomas pacing outside the room they are barred from entering, to standing on the other side of a glass window and seeing the blue blanket and knowing _that one is mine_ ; Alfred driving them home, knuckles white, never having been so nervous to be behind the wheel of the car before; and then they’re upstairs, and Thomas whisks Martha off to rest, and Alfred is left with the baby, sinking down carefully into the rocking chair and looking down into the little face.

Bruce’s eyes are open wide; Alfred knows that babies are born with blue eyes, but he rather thinks that Bruce will keep them, the same bright shade that Thomas has.

“Hello, Master Bruce,” He murmurs, rubs the back of his finger against one small cheek. Even holding him, it seems impossible that he can be so very small, fingernails like little grains of rice, entire body fitting in only one of Alfred’s arms. “Hello, my boy.”

Bruce is so new that every day is special, from discovering new things about him to watching him learn. Even with Alfred helping Thomas and Martha, the three of them are run rather ragged, especially considering that they don’t wish to hire a nanny.

“We will be raising our son on our own,” Martha had said, and Thomas and Alfred had not once thought of disagreeing, mostly because they agreed with her.

And yet, when Bruce is six months old, Alfred is playing with him, bopping him on the nose with a stuffed wolf that he likes to gum at, and smiling as every time it sends him into fits of giggles. Suddenly, Alfred simply knows that he wants to be Turned.

* * *

There aren’t many preparations that need to be taken care of; not by Alfred, at least. Thomas is Alpha Wayne, and so he promises that it’ll happen as soon as possible, which turns out to be the month that Bruce is eight months old. He’s been babbling up a storm lately, and always has a smile to spare for his parents; the blue eyes that Alfred had known he would keep sparkle with joy when he sees them, especially hulking Thomas in his wolf form.

As cliche as it sounds, when the moon rises to its peak and Thomas’ teeth close around the back of Alfred’s neck, he feels complete, another piece of him sliding into place that he didn’t even realize was missing. They don’t run through the woods that night, not with a cub and a baby. Instead, they roam around the little area staked out in the back gardens.

The first picture of Alfred as a wolf is him and Bruce, laying in the yard, curled together and sleeping. So begins their month; Alfred spends most of his time following Bruce around, plodding on large paws and doing his best not to trip over them.

During this month, Bruce walks for the first time, escaping his mother’s grasp to toddle over and plop down next to Alfred, winding his hands in auburn fur and giggling as a long tongue rasps at his cheek.

From then on, they can be found walking through the halls together, Alfred acting as a support for the baby, one sticky hand constantly gripping to his side or back as they toddle. It’s a miracle that neither of them comes out of it with an injury, considering how both of them are very much still prone to falling.

* * *

The years pass quickly; almost too quickly, Alfred will think, when the memories are all he has left. Bruce begins going to school when he is five, carrying a Grey Ghost backpack nearly as large as he is; that is also the year that Alfred reaches his full size, and one of Bruce’s favorite pastimes is to sit and watch Thomas and Alfred grapple, flashes of black and auburn fur mixing until they grow tired and end up curled together, a little boy clambering up to cuddle with them while they catch their breath. Sometimes Martha will join in, but her form is so much smaller than theirs that more often, she’ll playfully chase Bruce around, nipping at his clothes until he shrieks with laughter.

And then Bruce turns eight.

And then that awful, terrible night comes.

* * *

It was immediately apparent that the boy he was left to raise was not the boy he had been raising before. After his parents died, Bruce was solemn and surly. He often snapped at Alfred, but when Alfred would turn to leave the room, the boy would burst into tears, frightened that his last parent would leave him too. Alfred set up a camp bed in Bruce’s room and slept there for nearly a year, comforting him after nightly bad dreams.

In addition to that, Alfred let much of the staff go, not seeing the point in keeping so much of the Manor open when it was only a butler and a child living there anymore.

On the full moons, Alfred would keep up the tradition; after Turning, Bruce would clamber onto his back, and they would run through the woods until even Bruce was smiling.

* * *

So they struggled through until Bruce reached fifteen, seven years after his parents died. He’d grown into a handsome teenager, and although Alfred did his best to keep the boy from the cameras, every few weeks there was a new picture in the news as everyone gushed over how much he was going to look like his father.

He was moody and stubborn, eating everything in sight and growing like a weed, witty and sarcastic and so very much his parents’ son. Alfred ached for earlier years, for that sweet smiling boy, and for the parents that he had lost; but damn him, he didn’t think that he would give this Bruce up for anything.

The week before he turned sixteen, Alfred sat him down.

“If you don’t want to, lad,” He said, looking Bruce in the eye, “You don’t need to Turn, as you well know. You’re a part of the Pack, either way. The Alpha soon, if you wish.”

“You’re my dad,” Bruce said frankly, and that look on his face, that was all Martha, stubborn and sweet and annoyed that he had to say something so obvious. “You’re the Alpha of the Pack. I want to turn, and I don’t want to be Alpha.”

And, well. That was that.

* * *

Bruce was a pure black wolf, just like Thomas, with one single tuft of black fur by his ear that refused to lay down no matter how Alfred tried.

Raising a cub was a new experience, but Alfred and Bruce muddled through together, as they had all those years.

(He missed the little sticky hands in his fur, but the lolling tongue that licked his cheek whenever it was in reach was nearly as good.)

* * *

Alfred did his best not to take advantage, but now that Bruce had been Turned, the easiest way to calm him down was to press a hand to the back of his neck, to cup the mark that his own teeth had made. Somewhere along the line, Bruce turned it back on him, tipping their foreheads together and touching the mark that his father made on Alfred’s neck. It was a habit that would continue many years into the future, up to the point where Bruce finally did become Alpha.

* * *

And then, one night, Bruce brought home a child.

Suddenly, years later, the Pack had life again.

**Author's Note:**

> Werewolf part two! I had so much fun building up this romance.  
> Downloads are fine but please don't post this anywhere else without my permission.  
> Feel free to come catch me on [tumblr](https://iwillstaywiththemforever.tumblr.com).  
> Love you all and I will see you later!


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